


the lost lands

by Tsukarine



Category: Thrilling Intent (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Minor Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, au where they're all like royalty and shit, nothing too major but there's some sexual jokes and implied sex between two adults, thog got beaten up by a teenager twice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24904825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsukarine/pseuds/Tsukarine
Summary: meathe, tannhauser, and renalan, and their royalty-in-hiding.an au where everyone is either royalty or some form of nobility.
Relationships: Gregor Hartway/Zalvetta, Markus Velafi/Thog (Thrilling Intent), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	1. princess aesling

**Author's Note:**

> i originally wrote this as a joke where i made all of them royalty and then 20k words (and like four months) later i decided i should probably post some of it. there's eventual ships, but not really any in the first chapter. characters are aged down a few years at the beginning. i super did not get this beta read, but i've read over it so many times that i shouldn't have missed too much in the error department

To call any person in Alaran a member of nobility would imply that any of them had a single fucking noble thing about them, and that would be patently, objectively false in every moral code except for the Alarani moral code: contracts, stating that anyone willing to shell out the cash could be called a duke, count, viscountess, whatever the fuck—hell, with enough money, someone could probably declare themself the fucking king of Alaran and the law would accept it as long as that king bowed down to the CEOs.

Unless the king could buy out the CEOs, in which case… the king would become a CEO, and they could call themself whatever the _fuck_ they want. Congratu- _fucking_ -lations, in Alaran, enough cash can just fucking make any old schmuck the ruler of the entire goddamn nation.

Alaran’s attitude toward nobility, blunt as it may be, simplified all of the _bullshit_ that other kingdoms tout; nobility as a status of personal character, reserved for great heroes, philanthropists, extended royalty—all _bullshit_. It doesn’t fucking matter how _good_ someone is when they can _buy_ power, and whether that power has a title or not doesn’t fucking matter. A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, and a knife in the back from political assassination is still fatal whether the victim is a duke or an aardvark dressed up in a fucking suit and tie. 

To call _Thog_ any sort of nobility was just as much of a stretch as _anyone_ from Alaran, but the piece of paper declaring him the Marquess of Meadshire #7 sat framed in his office—not even the fucking _Duke of Meadshire,_ that title was reserved for some asshole with a lot of fucking money to burn on something utterly meaningless, otherwise known as his _boss._ The only real purpose that piece of paper served was making him sound way more fucking important than he actually was when engaging in trade with foreign nations. People outside Alaran apparently did zero research about the nobility system before deciding to trust his business decisions implicitly because he had a fancy title to go with his name. 

Honestly, he could probably call himself the fucking High King Wizard-Priest of Nalaner and not a single goddamn person would question it.

Fucking _idiots_. 

However, the Marquess of Meadshire #7 found himself in an unfamiliar situation as he looked down at the _person_ on his floor. He felt like he recognized her—dirty green clothing, matted white hair, amber eyes _flashing_ with the same look he associated with a cornered prey animal—but couldn’t put a name to her face. Her most distinct feature, however, was the collection of countless lines of thin ink across her skin, forming what looked like ornate knots. To Thog, the lines were meaningless, but they radiated a ghost of power that _also_ struck him as familiar. 

She spoke in heavily-accented Free, but her words held the sound of _wealth_ to them. Her pronunciation was perfect, the language itself refined; this girl was of noble heritage. Not Alarani bullshit nobility—she was _real_ nobility, probably the type who had a tutor and fucking _lessons_ as a kid, maybe even royalty, and the accent told him she wasn’t _anywhere_ near home. 

_Someone, somewhere_ missed this girl, and, if he could figure out who, Thog knew a _large_ sum of money would belong to him.

The girl fell quiet again, not that Thog had really listened to her before. He didn’t feel much of a need to call for backup—this girl looked like she was on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion. She looked to be about 16 or 17, definitely small enough that he could take her in a fight, even if she pulled a knife on him. 

It was then that the girl stood up, the world shook, and an avalanche of rocks crashed into him from behind, and Thog didn’t even have enough time to think _well, fuck,_ before he was knocked unconscious. 

When Thog came to again, he was tied up in his own chair, and the girl paced the room, limping on what he could guess was at least a sprained ankle. His memories came back to him—her eyes flashing gold, the room lighting up a vibrant green, and, wincing in pain, the stones that clearly did more than _slightly bruise_. He’d been held hostage before—who hadn’t, really—but this was the first person dumb enough to leave him _armed,_ he noted, his gun still holstered on his belt. 

“Your name,” the girl demanded, maintaining direct eye contact. 

“Why should I tell you that?” Thog looked over at her, slightly amused. 

She visibly faltered, and Thog took the moment of hesitation to study her. He was in no hurry to free himself, and he deemed it more valuable to figure this girl out than escape her shitty trap. If he could figure out who she was, he could _really_ get under her skin, and that would probably be more than enough to win this. 

“I’ll kill you if you don’t,” she finally said, and Thog caught a glimpse of her from the right angle–

It’d been years. Her hair was shorter when he last saw her, and she glared daggers at him, trying (and mostly failing) to look intimidating. There was no denying it, though: this was her, without a doubt, and she would fetch him a fortune if he played his cards right. 

With her, unfortunately, that meant _surviving the fucking encounter_. 

“Princess Aesling,” he drawled, almost deadpan. “A pleasure.”

Ashe _froze,_ panic crossing her face. Thog bit back a grin. _Bingo._

“Sorry to inform you, Princess, but we’ve met before. You might have been smaller, then,” Thog added, “but you’re still the same brat, it seems.”

As soon as Ashe drew her knife, Thog drew his gun, shaking off her shitty attempt at tying him up with _Meadshire_ ropes. Valiant effort on her part, really—the knots would’ve held if they weren’t made of literal _wet paper._

The rocks would be a problem. Thog was one of about six people in the past three centuries who had gone to Meathe—and likely the only one who had _intentionally_ done so—and lived to tell the tale. It was a business venture the Duchess of Meadshire sent him on, but it turned out pretty damn shitty—probably by design. Better for him to be killed than someone with actual power. When he got there, though, he found that Meathian isolationism was _worse_ than he’d been told—the whole goddamn island either hid or came after him with all sorts of weaponry, led by the very princess who now stood before him. He’d seen her summon that golem hand before—even as a kid, she was one of the island’s “guardians,” or whatever the fuck they called them, the ruthless forces of nature that channeled some Meathian god to protect the island. Easily the most powerful 13-year-old he’d ever met, honestly, and he would’ve liked it more if he’d never met her again. 

He waited for her to attack, but she stood still, transfixed by the gun pointed in her direction, like she’d never seen a gun before. Wryly, Thog realized that she probably _hadn’t_ seen one since he was there—Meathians and their backwards-ass technology. She didn’t stare for long, though, shaking her head before lunging forward, clearly aiming to catch his side with her dagger. 

Thog grabbed her wrist.

“Alright, Princess, that’s enough of that,” he said, dryly, wrenching the knife from her hand. “Let’s put the knives down.”

She wrestled against his grip, and he instead grabbed _more_ of her. “Fuckin’ cool it before some guard thinks this stopped being a murder attempt and turned into somethin’ worse,” he ground out through clenched teeth, trying to hold her still. 

Ashe narrowed her eyes at him and spit. “Fuck you!”

Before Thog could respond, a crackling energy spread across the room, and those _damn_ rocks came back, forming into a giant hand that swung at him. He ducked, but Ashe’s aim followed, hitting _both_ of them dead-on against the floor. “You planning on taking both of us out?” Thog asked, breathless from the impact.

Ashe’s chest _heaved_. Whatever she was doing, it was taking a lot of her control, and a direct collision with the floor was doing her _zero_ favors. The golem hand flickered, almost as though she couldn’t keep it under her control. “If I have to,” she panted. “Not going back.”

“Listen, kid,” Thog began, looking her over, realizing that there was no way for him to _win_ this one. “I’m not sending you back to goddamn _Meathe_. Last time I was there, I got chased off the fucking island by _you_. You’d kill whoever I sent you with.”

Ashe relaxed a minuscule amount, but she was still visibly tense, trying to catch her breath. The hand wavered around the edges. “Why should I believe you?”

Thog snorted, amused. “I was _going_ to hold you for ransom, Princess, but you’re too much fucking work for an island that would probably kill me _and_ my men if I tried. It’s not worth the money.” To his surprise, the hand vanished, and she collapsed to her hands and knees. After a second, he held out a hand for her and pulled her up. “The name’s Thog, Marquess of Shithole #7, legally known as _Meadshire #7,_ I fucking _guess_.” Standing, she laid a trembling hand on the hilt of another dagger, still glaring at him. “I don’t know jack shit about why you’re here and not on Meathe, but I’ll help you out if you fucking cool it and stop trying to stab me.”

“I could kill you right now,” she said, but it seemed like less of a threat and more of a self-defense mechanism. 

“I have a gun,” Thog deadpanned. “I could’ve killed you ten times over if I wanted you dead, Princess.”

Ashe said nothing to that, but she looked almost _indignant,_ as though Thog had insulted her. “It’s Ashe,” she said, finally.

“Not Aesling?”

“Ashe.” She crossed her arms. 

“Fine.” 

Ashe looked around his office, as though she were observing it for the first time, almost sheepishly averting her gaze from the ruined floorboards and trashed shelves. “Uh,” she hesitated. “Sorry, I guess. You said your name is Thog?”

He nodded. 

She visibly hesitated. “If you try anything, I’ll kill you,” she threatened.

He nodded again, entirely unimpressed.

“I mean it.”

“I’m well aware, kid. A lot of people have tried to kill me. Do you want my help or not?”

Ashe narrowed her eyes. “What do you want in return?”

Thog paused, not entirely sure how to respond. “For you to not kill me,” he finally said.

“You want something more,” Ashe said. “No one is kind to strangers for nothing.”

Thog shrugged. “You’re a kid,” he began, “and you’re limping around my office, covered in dirt, and shaking like you haven’t eaten anything substantial in a week. The shriveled remains of my conscience would make me feel worse about myself if I _didn’t_ help you.”

She looked even more embarrassed, like she was swallowing an entire meal’s worth of pride, but she didn’t say anything for a minute. 

The minute passed, long. “If you’re really trying to help me,” she began, “… do you have any food? Especially food I can… have? I guess?”

At that, Thog almost _smiled_. “I can get some.”

“I’m going to make sure it’s not poisoned.”

“I’d expect nothing less.” 

An hour later, Ashe sat in Thog’s office, now freshly-showered and clothed. Though the food was mostly for Ashe, Thog took some off of the plate and ate, mostly because it felt less awkward if they were both eating. He’d watched, amused, as she double and triple checked everything around her for traps, poison, and anything else that could harm her, including every new piece of food she picked up. 

“I’m only trusting you because I have to,” she said, defensively, as though she could read Thog’s mind.

“Funny,” Thog began. “I’m not even sure why you came here, so I’m not sure why you _have_ to trust me.” Despite his words, he was almost surprised by his _own_ willingness to help her. There was something about the way she looked—whatever she’d run from, it was clearly _worth_ getting the _fuck_ away from, and he understood that. She was a kid, but a kid with some _reason_. 

Still, her naiveté was proving itself a _great_ source of entertainment for Thog. He watched her closely examine a grape, and then touch it and transfer some of her weird fucking green lightning into it before eating it. “There’s much better ways for me to kill you than by poisoning a single goddamn grape,” he sighed. 

“I’m not taking the chance.”

“Suit yourself. You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

Ashe looked at him, her stare almost blank. She waved her hand a little and spoke through a mouthful of (carefully-examined, neutralized-by-lightning) grapes. “Stole a boat to get off Meathe. Took the boat to Alaran.” She gestured around. “This house looked like it had money.”

“We’re on the opposite side of Alaran from Meathe.”

“I left home last month.”

Ashe made it clear she wasn’t saying anything else on how she ended up specifically at Meadshire #7 as she took a decisive bite out of a chicken leg. 

“Why did you leave?” Thog asked, not really expecting much of an answer.

“Why do you want to know?”

“It’s not exactly _common_ for royalty to run away from home.”

Ashe hesitated, visibly debating with herself how honest she should be. “I was tired of being used,” she finally said, appearing to compromise with herself—clearly not the full truth, Thog could tell that much, but not a lie either.

It was a start. He’d take it.

Over the next week, Thog came to learn _many_ things about Ashe. She refused to sleep inside, but unlike everything else, it seemed to be a genuine preference rather than some paranoia that Thog was going to kill her in her sleep. She still watched Thog like he was going to pull a gun on her at any point, and, really, he almost felt _bad_ for mentioning that the first time they met. The kid seemed like she already had _more_ than enough anxiety to go around—not that that was his problem, really, except it kind of fucking was because _she_ was his problem. 

She had good instincts—he’d give her that—but her instincts were in the wrong place, clearly belonging to a kid who was _new_ to the whole _running away from home and meeting strangers_ thing. Thog questioned _every fucking day_ why he was charged with teaching her the right application of her instincts. Like, yeah, it was fucking smart to not just accept food from a stranger without making sure it wasn’t poisoned, but tying someone up and leaving them armed was _pretty fucking stupid, come on, Ashe._

To her credit, she had some unique talents. She took up mapping Meadshire #7 within a couple days of arriving, but every map she drew—aside from the godawful chicken scratch she called _handwriting_ —was higher quality than any of the shit the Alarani government ever gave him. Her attention to detail was fucking _stunning_. He _had_ to respect that. It was only after about a week that Thog felt like he could actually ask her about her maps without getting the verbal equivalent of being shoved in a fucking _cactus pit_. It was kind of embarrassing, really, but he was scared to ask a fucking _teenager_ about her hobby, and _god_ he felt old for being like _32 goddamn years old_. 

“Are you, like,” Thog paused, uncomfortable with interrupting her, “an actual cartographer?”

Ashe looked up at him from where she sat on the ground, drawing a map of the immediate area. “No,” she replied, her hostility about 50% lower than he was used to, but she still looked away and went back to working. “I just make them for myself.”

“Huh,” he replied, absently. He hesitated again, _more_ unsure of if he wanted to continue the line of questioning. “So,” he began, actively forcing himself to sound _casual_ and _hopefully not like a fucking creep,_ “would you consider, uh, making maps of this whole place?”

Ashe’s brow furrowed, still focused on her map. “Maybe,” she replied. “Why?”

“They’re a hell of a lot better than the shitty ones the Alarani government gave me, and having the maps doesn’t make the place itself any better, but…” he shrugged. “They’re good. Your maps are really good.”

“What’s in it for me?” she asked.

“We could consider everything I’m doing just part of your salary instead of you just taking fucking _charity_ from me.” It wasn’t really a threat. Despite her prickly attitude, she was the first interesting thing to come to Meadshire #7 since he’d taken it over, and he didn’t want to chase her off. “You could get a proper contract and actually work here instead.”

“And when I finish them all?” Ashe asked, finally taking her attention off her map and looking at Thog. 

Thog shrugged. “I guess our contract would be up. You could do whatever you want.”

Ashe didn’t respond for a minute. “I’m not signing a contract,” she said. 

_Smart kid,_ Thog thought. _But not too smart_. He snorted. “Yeah, sure, okay. No contract.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What’s funny about that?”

“You act like it fucking matters that _you_ wouldn’t sign the contract.”

Her eyes narrowed further. “If you try to force me, I’ll leave right now.”

Thog shook his head, chuckling. “I’d expect nothing less. But, no, I like to think I’m generally above that shit. No contract.”

She was silent for a minute, drawing a line. “You’ll have to provide me with materials for any map you want,” she finally said, “but I’ll draw them.”

Thog extended his hand. “Alright.”

Ashe shook his hand, nodding. “Deal.”

Thus, Ashe drew maps—and she drew them _fast_. Within a few days, she’d mapped the entire northernmost quarter of Meadshire #7 with what Thog considered _terrifying_ accuracy. He walked through the whole area himself, finding that she hadn’t missed a single goddamn thing—every rock, tree, path, shop stall, guard post, and anything else Thog could think of was exactly where the maps said it would be. He didn’t know how she fucking did it. More than that, though, he didn’t know how she got the fucking _names_ for these places, considering he hadn’t seen her talk to more than 3 people other than him in her entire visit, but she still found names for _everything._ Maybe she made some of them up, or maybe she asked the employees for stuff—he had no fucking clue. But when he got back to his office after verifying the correctness of her maps—something he did over the course of a few days, to be fair, because that was a lot of fucking walking—he’d found another bundle of maps on his desk, and he repeated the process until he had every goddamn inch of the place on a map. 

She was a hell of a lot more efficient than the government-provided _Cart-o-Graphers,_ which was apparently the bullshit name the Duchess of Meadshire gave to the cart-wielding rogue artists who couldn’t draw a goddamn straight line with a ruler. 

After the final bundle of maps was officially verified and filed away—he could make copies, making copies was even something the goddamn _Wizarding School of Meadshire_ graduates could handle most of the time—Thog decided it was time to actually _find_ Ashe. He hadn’t seen her in person for at least a week, except for one time where he saw her for about 20 seconds before she disappeared like a fucking _forest cryptid._ Even when he needed to deliver materials to her, they were usually left outside her door—sure, she slept outside, but she still took up one of his guest rooms, usually with the door locked. He didn’t even know if she knew how to get back inside it. Maybe she left the window open and went in and out that way. That made finding her a real fucking task, though—did he just go and knock on her door, hoping she was inside, or would he have to go on a fucking hunt for her? He stood outside her door, feeling more awkward than he should in his own goddamn house. 

Teenagers were a lot of fucking work.

After a couple minutes, he knocked on the door. “Hey, Ashe,” he said, “you in there?”

There wasn’t a response, but he heard someone shuffling around on the other side of the door. It sounded like it might’ve been papers or books, but he was pretty sure that Meathians weren’t big on the whole _reading_ thing—actually, he realized, it was pretty damn impressive that Ashe managed to spell everything on the maps right in the first place. She’d mentioned at least once that Meathians didn’t even have a written language, and all of her knowledge of writing came from about three months’ worth of learning. Thog realized he’d been waiting for long enough that if Ashe hadn’t already opened the door, she probably wasn’t planning on it.

“Uh…” he began, absently scratching the back of his neck. “I don’t know if you’re in there or not, but it sounds like you are. Fucking, whatever, you don’t need to come out if you don’t want to. Just,” he paused, again, “thanks for the maps, I guess. They look good, and they’re a hell of a lot more helpful than the shit that came with this place.” He stopped, realizing he’d said everything he’d wanted to say, but he felt pretty damn awkward about just walking away. “If you want to come to dinner some night,” he said, “well, I always eat in my fucking office, I guess, but feel free to join me. You’re not that bad of company, you know.”

It took just enough days that Thog thought maybe he _had_ spoken to an empty fucking room like an idiot, but Ashe finally showed up in his office for dinner one evening. She didn’t even knock—she just kind of _walked into_ his office around dinner time, but, to her credit, she looked like she regretted it on several levels as soon as she walked inside. All of the color drained from her face and her stare went vacant, averting her eyes from Thog, and he found himself wondering if she’d even consciously chosen to walk in without knocking or if she’d just done it. 

Thog cleared his throat. “Hey.”

Ashe appeared to snap back to reality. “… Hey,” she replied, hesitating. “Is this a bad time?” she asked.

“For dinner?” Thog replied, amused. 

She nodded. 

“Dinner’s not for another half hour,” he said, “but feel free to stick around.” He looked back down at his work, shuffling through some papers. Trying to not be obvious about it, Thog glanced up at her to see what she would do. She stood there, awkwardly by the door, and Thog thought she was about 20 seconds from bolting out of the room, passing out, or both. He breathed out a noise that might have sounded a _little_ like a laugh. “You can sit down, you know. We have couches for that.”

Ashe moved to the couches and sat down, visibly stiff even from all the way across the goddamn room. Thog let her sit like that for a few minutes while he finished the paperwork he was on. It was pretty uninteresting stuff, really—he had to fill out forms for both the Duchess of Meadshire and the Alarani government letting them know his assets and what he needed to keep Meadshire #7 running as smoothly as possible. He requested the same shit every time, but since neither of those groups could provide anything of more than middling quality, Meadshire #7, like all Meadshires, remained _unbelievably_ shitty. Maybe they’d grant him a new attraction this time, though, like a Rat Well or an actual tree made of wood and leaves with no glue or saws involved. As he put the last paper from _that_ menial task aside, he decided to stop making Ashe sit in silence thick enough to cut with a fucking knife. He got up from his chair and moved to the couch across from Ashe.

“Isn’t it still like, 20 minutes until dinner?” Ashe asked, relaxing only a hair at Thog’s appearance. 

Thog nodded. “It is, but you look like I’m holding you at gunpoint. I felt bad leaving you to just sit here and wait.”

Ashe looked down at her hands, cracking her knuckles absently. “I’ve never just been _invited_ to dinner.”

Thog’s brow furrowed and he had to _try_ not to laugh. “Aren’t you a princess? Wasn’t there all sorts of royalty dinner bullshit with your fucking… nobility? Courts? Whatever you had on Meathe?”

“Not really,” Ashe replied. “Most of our stuff ran through the…” she trailed off. “The word doesn’t exist in Free,” she finally said. “It roughly translates to Domain of the Earth Fiend. It’s kind of like our church, if I had to compare it, but it’s also kind of like… the government?”

Thog raised his eyebrows. “Earth Fiend?”

Ashe hesitated, waving a hand. “Diatahl. Spirit is probably a closer word for it, but there’s no distinction in Meathe’s language. We use the same word for basically anything divine or infernal.”

Thog hummed in response. “Didn’t realize Meathe is a theocracy.”

Ashe seemed to visibly process the word for a few seconds, but before Thog felt the need to define it for her, she nodded. “I wasn’t just royalty,” she agreed. “I was something approaching a god to them. The people worshipped my family.”

“I’ve always heard Meathe was a nation founded by pirates,” Thog said. “Not exactly the _religious_ type.”

“Oh, no, it is,” Ashe replied, flat. “Our adventurers brought people back to Meathe and we would sacrifice them to Diatahl.”

“Oh, so you come from the pirate cult island.”

Ashe nodded. 

“If you have a pirate cult, why even bother with royalty?” Thog asked. “Seems like it’d be easier for the leaders of the church to just claim all of the power for themselves.”

“It’s… hard to explain in Free,” Ashe said. “There’s a lot of Meathian words with no translation.” She paused for another few seconds. “Royalty on Meathe is like… we’re the Guardians of Meathe, you know.”

“That’s why you beat me up as a fucking 13-year-old, yeah,” Thog replied, the corner of his mouth twitching into something approximating a smirk. 

“Yeah. The Guardians have only a few jobs, and most of them relate to killing people and calling it sacrifice,” Ashe said, a wry smile on her face. “My mother was a Guardian as well. Every carrier of the royal bloodline is. They’re called royalty because the powers are derived from Diatahl.” She paused, her brow furrowing momentarily. “We have a word for the actual process, but it doesn’t have much of a translation. It’s like… a blessing and a burden at the same time, I guess.”

“Obligation,” Thog offered. 

Ashe tilted her head. “Yeah, in a sense.” 

“So,” Thog began, “you left because you didn’t like being a Guardian?” he asked. “Because you seem to have _no_ reservations about beating people up.”

Ashe, to her credit, looked a little sheepish at his statement, but her expression changed to something unreadable. “No,” she said. “I’m actually the only living Guardian left, I think.”

Thog’s eyebrows raised. “Thought you were supposed to be powerful.”

“We are,” she said, her voice suddenly quieter, “but Meathe itself is losing power. Something’s… eating away at the land. Many of the Guardians before me threw all of their energy into saving the land, staving off Meathe’s destruction with everything they could. It killed them, ultimately.”

Thog didn’t say anything, absorbing this. Ashe made it seem like it was a simple inevitability—to keep Meathe alive, people had to die. That concept wasn’t unfamiliar to him; it was how the fucking _world_ worked. Someone had to die to keep someone else alive. What was harder to stomach, though, hit him like a ton of bricks—”You were tired of being used,” he said, echoing her words after what must have been at least a full minute.

Ashe nodded, but she looked distant, like her mind was somewhere else. “Maybe that makes me a coward,” she said, averting her gaze, “but I couldn’t do anything else. I had to leave.”

“If I’ve learned anything in my life,” Thog began, “it’s that the cowards survive. We’re the ones who make it through the wars, staying out of battles and fleeing the country when shit looks bad. The brave might die with honor, but they’re still fucking dead.”

Ashe said nothing in return, but she sighed, looking down at the floor. Maybe this was the full picture, but Thog felt like it wasn’t—it was still more than he ever expected her to tell him, though. A few minutes passed between them, mutually processing the conversation. Finally, Ashe spoke up again. “What did you run from?” she asked.

Thog rubbed at the back of his neck before cracking it. “I guess I opened myself up to that one,” he said. “It’s a pretty long fucking story, but, to keep it short,” he paused, thinking about what he wanted to say. It wasn’t exactly a story he told that often, by fucking design, but it felt like he _needed_ to tell Ashe. Some bullshit about showing her he, in some way, trusted her too, even if he’d rather forget the whole fucking thing and pretend it never happened. “Listen,” he said, finally, rubbing at one of his temples, “I once gave a shit about a lot of things I don’t care about now. I used to be a street thug, which has more culture to it than the entire fucking country of Alaran. I broke code by leaving. Most people live and die in the system, but I got out, took a day job, turned my life around and became fucking nobility, which is everything they went against there. I wanted some sort of stability, normalcy—not revolution. Revolutionaries die, especially in Alaran, and I wasn’t going to be another criminal sold into slavery at fucking best.” His brow furrowed, but he couldn’t just stop _there._ “I left people behind. A lot of people, actually, and I’ve paid hell for it ever since. They depended on me, but I wouldn’t depend on them. But I’m still here, and they’re not,” he said. “So whatever regrets I have, I’m still fucking alive.”

Ashe made a vague noise in response, but Thog couldn’t tell if it was understanding or a lack thereof. “I’m not going to say I get it,” she began, her words themselves tentative, “but I think I understand at least a little. You didn’t want to be part of a system that led to your death, so you got out.”

“Guess we’re pretty fucking alike in that sense, then,” Thog commented, absently. Talking about all of that bullshit brought back a little more than he was comfortable remembering. It brought a bad taste to his mouth. Phantom sensations of knives slicing into his skin crawled across him, tracing the lines of his scars. His explanation was shitty and he knew it, but Ashe didn’t press the issue for more detail. It made his heart race and he closed his eyes, trying to ignore the images that flashed in his mind. It was fucking _overdramatic,_ he’d been out of that shit for years, but the memories were fresh like it was yesterday.

He shoved them all aside, shelving them for another day that he knew wouldn’t come if he had anything to say about it. He looked up, meeting Ashe’s eyes— _pity,_ that was fucking _pity,_ he kind of hated that, actually—and tried to find something else to talk about. “Bullshit like that just doesn’t leave you alone, ever, huh,” he commented.

Ashe nodded knowingly, and, despite the fact that he was talking to a goddamn 17-year-old, Thog believed she actually knew, which was almost as unpleasant as the shit he tried to avoid thinking about.

A knock came from the door, signaling that dinner had arrived. Thog, grateful for the distraction, got up, the conversation abandoned.

Over the two weeks or so, Ashe joined Thog for dinner almost every night. After their first night, though, a noticeable shift came in their relationship: Ashe actually _spoke_ to Thog. They would run into each other during the day and greet each other. She would occasionally appear in his office to ask a question or tell him something. Whatever trust they’d forged that first night was _more_ than enough to keep them talking to each other, which impressed Thog on its own. He wasn’t sure that he could really call Ashe a _friend_ —she _was_ a friend, but she was also a younger sister, a regrettable teenage daughter, or some bullshit like that. For the first time in his fucking life, he saw someone that he wanted to protect from the same stupid decisions he made. He found _genuine respect_ for her, too, which was more than he’d mustered for just about anyone—often including himself—for the past seven years. 

Thog learned about Meathian culture from Ashe, which was more than a _little_ fucked up—expecting a goddamn teenager to sacrifice their life for the country? He’d seen a lot of fucked up shit in his life, and that was definitely in the top ten. Meathian culture beyond that was fucking _weird._ Their traditions were a lot like someone had combined the traditions of about four different countries, then crushed them all into a fucking _pulp_ with a meat tenderizer, run them through a slurry machine, and then frozen them into holiday-size popsicles. Ashe insisted that Alarani traditions were backwards as fuck, and she was right, but that didn’t mean Meathe was any _better._

“So, you’re fucking telling me,” Thog began, forkful of macaroni and shrimp poised just above his plate, “you can just fuckin’… put people back together with magic?”

Ashe nodded, chewing. “Temporarily. It doesn’t last unless the wound could heal itself in the time it stays together. It’s not quite magic, either, I guess.”

“Healing magic is illegal in Alaran,” Thog said. “You have to do it strictly under the table.”

“But that’s legal?” Ashe guessed.

Thog nodded.

“Alaran is so…” Ashe trailed off. “Weird.”

“It’s fucking weird,” Thog agreed, “but it’s pretty straightforward. If you need a license to do it somewhere else, it has to be done in secret here, but doing it in secret is almost always legal. Not that we have many people who can say they have _healing magic_ here,” he added. “Maybe some fucking scam artists or whatever who say they have it, but not many who have the real thing.”

“I was expected to heal in Meathe,” Ashe said. “A lot of the wounds were minor, like…” a smile crossed her face, “little kids would come up and ask me to heal their scrapes and bruises, which I didn’t mind. It was kind of cute, actually.” The smile turned a bit more wry, as though she’d told herself a private joke. “I had a _reputation_ , though, you could say.”

Thog raised his eyebrows. “You were fucking terrible at it?”

Ashe shook her head. “Actually, the opposite. I was pretty good at it, but I also made it _really_ painful.”

“I thought the idea of healing was to make it _not_ painful.”

“You can’t just leave someone’s shoulder dislocated from the socket when you heal it.”

Thog chuckled. “Yeah, okay, sure.”

Ashe leaned back, stretching. “Healing isn’t… nice,” she said. “I have to tap further into Diatahl’s powers if the wound is severe.” She paused, looking up at the ceiling. She sat like that, her eyes distant, staring at nothing. “It’s like I lose a little bit of myself every time I do it.”

“Okay, but,” Thog began, “can you even do it now? Generally when you fucking, _renounce your faith_ in a god, gods revoke their blessings, because they’re _bastards."_

Ashe laughed, focusing back on the present. “I don’t know,” she said. “I can still do minor things, but I don’t know if I have a degree of… innate power, or something. Diatahl isn’t quite a god, either,” she added. “It’s more like an embodiment of the earth around Meathe.”

Before Thog could reply, a stiff, frantic knocking came from the door. “The fuck do they want?” he asked, more to himself than Ashe, eyes narrowing. He stood up and went to the door, unlatching it and checking on whoever the fuck was knocking. 

A trembling kid—14 or 15, maybe, some “knight” in training, his name might have been Shrimp—stood outside. He bowed low, his hands noticeably shaking on his cap. “Sir, uh- sir, _Sir_ -”

“Come on, kid,” Thog said, actively trying not to snap at him, “What’s happening?”

“There’s some, some- some _soldiers_ here, to see you, Sir, and they’re _scary_ -” Shrimp stammered, breaking off into a wail at the end. 

Thog’s eyebrows raised, but his eyes narrowed. “Alarani soldiers? Tell ‘em to fuck off, I paid everything I was supposed to-”

“N-n-no-” Shrimp’s teeth chattered, and Thog wondered if the soldiers dipped the kid in a fucking ice bath before sending him up to talk. “They say they’re from some place c-called, uh, M-Meathe, Sir, and they’re looking for someone, a girl-”

Thog’s eyes went wide. He glanced back into the room at Ashe. She looked like she’d seen a ghost, with empty eyes and all of the color gone from her face. His hand went to his gun. “Tell them we haven’t seen any Meathians here,” he said, firmly, forcing his voice to not waver. 

“They want to search the, uh, the place-” 

“They’re not allowed to search my fucking office, that’s my private property. Forbidden under the Alrani Protection Clause 5.57, Section A. Tell them that searching in here is tantamount to declaring fucking _war_ on Alaran.”

“Yes, yes, Sir, of course, Sir,” Shrimp said, but his feet didn’t even move. 

“Go!” Thog barked, retreating back into his office and latching the door shut. For a moment, he heard nothing from the other side of the door, but the sound of hesitant footsteps and, eventually, a quavering voice. He stood, back pressed against the door, listening to two voices speak in heavily-accented Free not unlike Ashe’s intermixed with Shrimp’s high-pitched squeaking, until, finally, the voices quieted down. Through the window, he saw two people leave—tall, dressed in earthy clothing similar to what Ashe wore when they first met, armed with some impressive fucking swords, he had to admit. They split up, venturing into separate buildings and houses.

Ashe sat completely still, not even breathing.

“Hey,” Thog said, voice low, “they’re gone.”

She let out a shallow breath.

“They’re searching houses, but they’re not allowed to search here,” he said. “Alarani privacy laws actually did something _useful_ for once, go fucking figure.”

“They’ll be back,” she breathed, panic laced through her voice. “They’re gonna fucking come back, Thog.” Her words sped up. “They’re gonna come back and catch me and kill me-”

“You’re their princess,” Thog said. “They won’t kill you.”

“Going back _will_ kill me! They want me back so I can die!”

Thog didn’t say anything. “Well, we’ll just have to make sure they can’t fucking find you, then.”

 _“How?"_ Ashe asked.

Thog looked over at her. For the first time since they’d met, he saw the same person who cowered under his gaze and stared in shock at a gun pointed directly at her—not Ashe, the capable cartographer and warrior, quick on her feet and with her words; but _Aesling,_ the scared princess who ran away from home, a cornered and vulnerable child who’d spent the past couple of months winging literally everything she did. 

He rubbed his forehead with one hand. “Alright,” he said. “I’ve got an idea, but you’re not going to like it.”

Ashe gave him a wary stare.

“Don’t fucking look at me like that,” he said. “I’m not going to turn you in or anything.”

“What are you _going_ to do, then?” she asked.

“I need to write a friend,” he said. “I’ve got one hell of a favor to ask of him.”


	2. prince markus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> markus enters the picture! markus/thog is not a central ship in this fic but it is relevant for a few upcoming chapters since it's related to their backstory.

Markus Velafi rarely spoke of his time before he began adventuring. Those around him knew conflicting tales about his life. Some would say he was a servant to an unimportant nobleman, others claimed he was the servant to the king, others still said he  _ was  _ an unimportant nobleman. Occasionally his tales would spin in wild directions, wherein he claimed that he became an adventurer because he killed a dragon, or the Outriders hunted him down for years, or that the Prophet themself was on Markus’s tail (both literally and figuratively, depending on who you asked) and had a bounty out for Markus’s head on a silver platter.

That last one might actually be true.

The true story—the one he never told—was that he was actually the _prince_ of the Kingdom of Tannhauser. Specifically, he _was_ a prince of Tannhauser, past tense. Or perhaps _present_ tense, depending on how one defined _Tannhauser_ —a prince of the current Tannhauser? Oh, _never_. He was _far_ too demonic for that. Too much infernal blood, too many horns and wings and tails (that is to say two, two, and one, respectively)—he’d vaporize the _moment_ he set foot into the country. However, he _was_ a prince of Tannhauser by birth— _the_ prince of Tannhauser, actually, the _crown_ prince, Prince Markus Velafi of Tannhauser. Not the _Holy_ Kingdom of Tannhauser, just plain old Tannhauser—and seeing as the Holy Kingdom of Tannhauser was the only Tannhauser that still existed, Markus supposed that meant he wasn’t really a prince of Tannhauser at _all_ anymore. 

Seeing as he’d lost all rights to call himself a prince the day the Revolution of Holy Rights reached Velafmore, his backstory didn’t seem particularly relevant to him. He’d been royalty once, and then his kingdom was overthrown by a divine freak who’d spent fifteen years trying to slaughter him and mount his head on the wall like he was a fine piece of game. While  _ fine  _ was one of the first words he’d use to describe himself, the only thing he wanted that had anything to do with  _ mounting  _ involved him, at least one consenting partner, and a bed—and secrets like “I’m the former prince of Tannhauser” spread  _ far  _ too fast to just shout them from the rooftops.

That wasn’t to say that no one  _ knew  _ Markus was once the prince of Tannhauser—he just wasn’t the one to  _ tell  _ them. Recently, he’d met a group of people  _ from  _ Tannhauser—expatriates who weren’t human (or better) enough to escape the Prophet’s wrath. The three of them knew him on sight—Markus said his own name in an accent that spoke of a childhood in Tannhauser, and the three of them gave him a  _ look _ . The least human-looking of the group, a chimera, spoke up at that point: “ _ You’re _ supposed to be dead.”

Needless to say, Markus had  _ quite  _ the evening speaking of Tannhauser with these three—Hilda, Nahal, and Xanthe. They’d left years after the revolution, but they were all from Tannhauser and, as expected, they remembered their crown prince’s face. What excited Markus  _ most  _ about these three was their distinct  _ lack  _ of reverence; his greatest fear (or, at least, the greatest fear he would admit to) was being recognized by someone who actually gave a shit about him being former royalty, for better or for worse. If they wanted to kill him, he could at least kill them first, but if they admired him blindly, he’d be stuck with the world’s worst kind of person: the one that tried to stick themself to his arm.

Meeting the three of them was, arguably, the best thing that’d happened in his time as an adventurer—he liked meeting powerful friends, sure, and they were valuable, but these three were both powerful  _ and  _ practical. Nahal held a sharp tongue and potent magic, Hilda was  _ huge  _ and had her  _ own  _ potent blood magic, but Xanthe was the most powerful of them all—she could reenter Tannhauser without the government’s detection, meaning that she’d brought back countless trinkets from the Infernal Containment Area. They were all  _ excellent  _ adventuring partners on the occasion that he needed friends.

Markus didn’t really  _ know  _ why he’d chosen adventuring. It was easier than settling down, and he certainly needed  _ some  _ excitement in his life (how else was he supposed to make friends with charming people?), but he could’ve done  _ anything  _ safer. However, after a few years of bouncing around Hell as a target of the infernal population, danger was too familiar to give up entirely. It didn’t come with dental, which was a  _ severe  _ detraction, but he could survive with some expensive dental bills when he got paid by some very,  _ very _ rich people. 

Such was the case this time. He’d been hired by someone he would actually call a  _ friend— _ the Venerable and Almost-Honorably Rich Marquess, Thog of Meadshire #7 himself—but not to complete a job for  _ him _ . Rather, Thog wrote him a letter expressing that he wanted Markus to take someone away from Meadshire #7 for  _ their  _ sake instead of his. In fact, Thog referred to it as a  _ favor _ —and, really, he hadn’t heard Thog use that word in  _ years.  _ He dealt in concrete debts and that which was legally binding almost  _ exclusively _ . That  _ alone _ was enough to pique Markus’s interests.

Thog talked about his cartographer, some kid he’d met a couple months ago who was essentially in his care in exchange for drawing up maps of the whole place. She’d mapped the entirety of Meadshire #7 out and had nothing left to do, but she didn’t really have anywhere else to go, either. She was getting antsy and  _ still _ thought Thog was going to kill her with every single grape she picked up, and while he liked the kid, he wasn’t sure how much more of that he could handle. The letter was short, concise as hell, and  _ perfectly  _ like Thog, Markus thought.

While Markus had no doubt that all of this was true, there were definite hazy undertones to the letter. Markus couldn’t quite read entirely what Thog was getting at in his words, but he knew there had to be  _ more _ . Like, a  _ lot  _ more—if that was even half of the story, he’d eat his own shoe. Maybe it was something Thog himself didn’t know he wanted, or maybe it was just too sensitive for a letter—though, he would guess it was the latter, considering he didn’t even give “the kid” a name. 

When he arrived in Meadshire (#7, as the law mandated be specified at all times to avoid intratrademark copyright violations), he didn’t have any fucking clue what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t what he  _ found _ . He found Thog at the center of the cardboard town, arguing with a kid who was, quite frankly, older than Markus actually  _ expected _ . When Thog said “kid,” Markus thought he would be dealing with a moody 15-year-old, not someone who looked almost like she could be an adult. She gestured, hands waving in the air as she shouted. 

“What do you fucking  _ mean  _ by an  _ adventurer _ ?” she shouted, gesturing again at nothing of note. “One of your fucking  _ lackeys  _ who’s going to send me back? You said you were calling in a favor, not fucking  _ sending me away _ -”

Thog leaned back on one side, arms crossed. “I mean some asshole I’d trust with my life,” he replied. “He’s not going to fucking  _ eat  _ you. And, I already told you fucking  _ ages  _ ago, you’re more trouble than any amount ransom money can make up for. If I’d really wanted to get rid of you, I had the perfect fucking opportunity.”

Markus, amused, waltzed into the square, observing that the kid had already kicked the shit out of several  papier mâché statues. “Now, Thog, you don’t know that I wouldn’t eat her,” he began, a devilish smile on his face. “I’ll have you know that I consider children quite the delicacy.”

The kid looked over at him, her mouth  _ hanging  _ open, but it quickly snapped shut as she  _ glared _ at him. “And you’re the piece of shit here to take me away?” she snapped.

Markus shrugged. “Guess so.” He extended his hand. “Markus Velafi, adventurer extraordinaire.” He winked.

She didn’t take his hand and instead turned to look at Thog. “Why the fuck does he have  _ horns _ ?” she asked, gesturing at Markus. 

“That’s racist,” Thog said.

“I usually get that under very different contexts,” Markus said, simultaneously.

“Fucking  _ excuse me _ for questioning why a fucking  _ demon  _ is trustworthy enough for me to just  _ go  _ with him,” she said, still looking at Thog.

“Still racist,” Thog said.

“Now, that  _ might  _ be racist,” Markus agreed, simultaneously. 

Thog looked at Markus. “It’s definitely racist.”

“You’re right.” Markus nodded. He looked at her. “Actually, it’s  _ tiefling,  _ not demon. Common misconception, I know.”

“That’s not the racist part,” Thog deadpanned, looking from Markus to the kid. “Come on, Ashe. I told you I trust him with my life,” he sighed, exasperated. “I really only do that for people who have  _ saved  _ my life before, and that’s still only  _ some  _ of them.”

Ashe crossed her arms again. “I don’t trust  _ you _ .”

Thog and Markus made brief eye contact. “Sure, Aesling,” Thog said.

“Ashe,” she corrected, bristling. 

“Ashe,” he agreed, a hint of a smirk on his face.

She glared at Thog. 

Thog stared back, blank and uninterested. 

After several seconds of one-sided intense staredown, she looked at Markus. “Alright,” she said. “You’re a thiefling-”

“Tiefling,” Thog corrected.

“Whatever. Tiefling, thiefling, teethling-”

_ “That’s _ a slur,” Markus interjected. “Or at the very least insensitive, depending on who you ask.”

“Fucking  _ how _ ?” Ashe asked, distracted from whatever she was going to say.

Markus opened his mouth, showing off sharp, pointy teeth. 

Ashe paused, visibly unsure of what to make of that.

Thog nodded. “It’s fucking racist, Ashe.”

Ashe glared back at Thog again. “ _ Okay,  _ it’s racist,” she said, gesturing at nothing again. “Can I  _ finish _ ?”

“Go right ahead,” Markus said. 

Ashe refocused her attention on Markus. “You’re a tiefling. Aren’t tieflings usually  _ evil _ ? Comes from the whole  _ demonic ancestry  _ shit?”

“That’s another common misconception,” Markus said. “Generally, the only evil tieflings are those undergoing their bloodlust phase.” 

“Their bloodlust phase,” Ashe repeated, deadpan.

“Happens to all of us.” Markus shrugged.

“And you’ve…  _ passed  _ your  _ bloodlust phase _ ?” she asked, just shy of accusatory. 

“What do you  _ take  _ me for?” Markus asked, giving an additional, flippant shrug. “I’m not  _ 17 _ .”

A pink shade rose to her cheeks, but she scowled. Markus  _ grinned _ , knowing it was 100% shit-eating. 

Thog cleared his throat. “We should probably move this inside.”

Markus and Ashe both turned to look at Thog. “Of course,” Markus said, mock-bowing. “Shall we?”

A few minutes later, the three of them sat down in Thog’s office, having shooed the guard away from the door so that they could talk with the most privacy possible in the one real building in all of Meadshire #7. 

Markus spoke up first. “Where’s your accent from?” he asked, nodding at Ashe.

Ashe tensed up again. “Island,” she blurted out.

“Island,” Thog repeated, deadpan. “Listen, Ashe, I asked Markus specifically here because of  _ his  _ lineage-”

“Oh?” Markus looked at Thog, suddenly interested.

“She’s from-” Thog cut off, looking at Ashe for confirmation, who narrowed her eyes in response. “Meathe.”

Markus’s eyebrows raised of, quite frankly, their  _ own  _ accord. “Meathe?” he asked.

Thog nodded. “Would you explain, Ashe?”

A moment of silence passed over the group, and just as Thog’s expression changed, Ashe finally spoke up. “I left Meathe.”

“I didn’t know people could just  _ leave _ ,” Markus commented. “How’d you do it?”

“I stole a boat.”

Markus paused, unsure of how to respond. “I can’t argue with that.”

Thog cleared his throat again, looking at Ashe more pointedly. 

“ _ I  _ don’t fucking know why his lineage is relevant, Thog. I’m not saying shit about mine,” Ashe added. 

Thog and Markus made eye contact. “You mind if I…?” Thog asked.

Ashe grumbled something about how Thog never waited for  _ her _ permission before sharing facts about  _ her  _ life with  _ complete fucking strangers _ . 

“By all means,” Markus said, nodding.

“Markus, here, is royalty,” Thog said, looking over at Ashe not unlike a father scolding a petulant toddler.

“ _ Was _ royalty,” Markus interjected. “You can  _ hardly  _ call me royalty anymore.”

“Is, was, same difference.” Thog shrugged. “Born into a royal family, raised as a prince, all of that bullshit.”

Ashe remained silent, not looking at either of them. Markus looked at Thog, trying to figure out why it was relevant.

“Ashe isn’t just  _ Meathian, _ ” Thog said. “Ashe is the  _ crown princess  _ of Meathe.”

“I’ll fucking kill you,” Ashe snapped before Markus could respond. Her fingers gripped down on her legs, green lightning crackling in the space between her fingers. 

Markus nodded, finally understanding. “You’re on the run?” he asked. 

“You could say that,” Ashe ground out through gritted teeth, focused solely on Thog. The lightning threatened to singe a hole in Thog’s desk. 

“Hey, hey,” Markus stuck a hand out, lightly touching Ashe’s arm. “Be pissed at Thog later.” Her attention snapped towards him, glaring  _ through  _ his skull in a way that was  _ almost  _ unnerving, but the green lightning vanished. “Are there people tailing you?”

Ashe hesitated. “I don’t know.”

Thog cleared his throat. “We had some soldiers show up the other day looking for her. We don’t know if they know she’s here or if they were just searching the area.”

Ashe’s brow furrowed. “They might not know, but there’s a good chance they’ll learn.”

Markus hummed vaguely in response. “Well, either way, you’re with the best person to keep you safe.” Markus grinned, winking. “I’ve been on the run from the Prophet for 15 years, give or take. Avoiding aggressive soldiers is one of my many talents. Do you, by chance, know how to turn into shadows and teleport?”

Ashe looked up at him,  _ clearly  _ unconvinced.

Thog sighed. “Ashe, I’m not getting  _ rid  _ of you. It’s  _ safer  _ with Markus.”

Ashe was silent for a long time. Finally, she looked up at Markus,  _ not  _ glaring. “Does everyone know about your… lineage?” she asked. 

“I mean, not really,” he replied. “A handful of people know, but they’re basically all from pre-revolution Tannhauser. Obviously, Thog knows, but I don’t just go around telling people, if that’s what you mean.”

“And where would I go  _ if  _ I went with you?”

“Adventurers can go anywhere,” Markus said, grinning, “but the guild is based here in Alaran. It’s about a day’s journey.”

Ashe looked back at Thog, still seething, but noticeably calmer than she’d been a few minutes earlier. She took a deep breath. “Tell me how you two know each other.”

Thog sat back in his chair, visibly relaxing. “We met, what, twelve years ago?”

“Around that. Thirteen, maybe?” Markus replied. “We met in Freearch. Thog was new in the business-” Thog made a face. “-and I was a new adventurer.”

“Right,” Thog said. “I hired him to take care of something for me while I was in Freearch.”

Ashe narrowed her eyes at Thog. “What business?”

“I needed a bodyguard. He was cheap.”

Ashe nodded, finding this acceptable. “Continue.”

Markus grinned. “I  _ was  _ a cheap bodyguard.”

“You were 15,” Thog said, eyebrows raised.

“Excuse you, I was 15 and pretending to be 19,” Markus replied.

“Uh huh.” Thog leveled a stare at him. “Very convincing.”

“I was at  _ least  _ as convincing as you trying to be 25.”

Thog grimaced a little. “Yeah, okay, can’t argue with that one. We both wanted to look older and more important than we were.” He shrugged. “We were  _ both  _ full of shit, at least.”

“You introduced yourself as Dan of-”

Thog cleared his throat. “ _ Markus _ .”

Markus grinned again, making eye contact with Ashe before looking back to Thog. “Well, I served as Wizard Dan of Wizardland’s bodyguard, and even though we were both totally full of shit, we trusted each other enough because there was a lot of money involved.”

Thog turned to Ashe. “That answer your question?”

“It doesn’t tell me why I should trust him,” she replied.

Thog sighed. 

Markus grinned. Oh, this  _ was  _ his time to shine. “ _ Well _ , Ashe,” he began, “there were a couple times people tried to kill Thog, and —bravely— I killed them instead. And, in Freearch,” he pointed out, “everyone is either a trained assassin or trying to be one.”

“You were hired to be his bodyguard,” Ashe replied, her brow furrowing slightly. “That seems like it’s your job.”

Thog snorted. “In Freearch, hiring a bodyguard is just paying someone to not kill you and hoping their friends won’t do it instead.”

Ashe’s brow furrowed more. “Right,” she said.

“Thog and I became friends while we were in Freearch, and he even vacationed in Hell a couple of times to see me,” Markus added. “Not that the Alarani know what a vacation is, but,” he winked, “I showed him.”

Ashe gave Markus a look, then turned the same look to Thog, but she said nothing. Markus noticed, with satisfaction, that Thog had the faintest hint of pink on his cheeks. “Yes,” he said, glancing at Markus. A ghost of a smirk crossed his lips, and he turned to Ashe instead. “Markus might, regrettably, be the closest thing I have to an actual  _ friend _ . If I had to trust anyone in the world, it’d be him.”

Markus’s grin softened. “Aww, Thog,” he began, laying on as much saccharine half-bullshit as possible, “that’s sweet.”

“I take it back. I fucking hate him.”

Markus placed a hand on his chest. “ _ Thog, _ ” he cried, feigning pain, his grin coming back full force.

Thog chuckled, and for a moment, Markus saw beneath the guise of business. It struck at some chord in him, sending him back to eight or nine years ago, when that was commonplace. The conversation lulled for a minute, neither one of them really speaking.

“So, uh,” Thog turned his attention to Ashe, seeming to only then remember that she was there. “How’s that?”

Ashe was quiet for a long moment, looking back and forth between the two of them. “Fine,” she said. She turned to Markus. “Give me a night,” she said. “We can leave tomorrow morning.”

Thog and Markus looked at each other and shrugged.

“Why not,” Thog said, mostly deadpan, business guise returning. He looked at her. “If you run, you’re on your own, you know that, right?”

Ashe nodded, standing up. “I’m not going to run. I want to do research.” She crossed her arms, turning to Markus. “ _ If _ you are who you say you are, you shouldn’t have any problem with that.”

“I have lied about myself a great many times in my life,” Markus began, “but I swear to you on this that I am telling the truth.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

Ashe, without saying anything else, left the room.

After the door closed behind her, Markus waited about thirty seconds before speaking. 

“Is she always like this?” he asked, a smile playing across his face.

Thog rubbed a hand across his face. The business guise dropped again, Markus noted, only slightly amused. “I feel like I have a teenage daughter,” he said. “I’m not  _ old  _ enough for this shit.” He dug around in his desk and pulled a flask out. He took a  _ long  _ drink from it and offered it to Markus. 

“Thanks, but I’ll pass tonight,” Markus said. “I think I’m going to want to be in my best state tomorrow morning.”

“Suit yourself.” Thog took another drink. “She’s-” he groaned, rubbing his face again. “To answer your question, no, she’s not always  _ this  _ bad. She’s just pissed off right now. The soldiers appearing the other day have her on edge, and she’s scared of anything that moves. Earlier was the first time in a few days she’s left this building.” He took another sip. “Normally she’s pretty responsible,” he said, gesturing vaguely to nothing in particular. “A little naïve, definitely still a kid, but she’s got a pretty good head on her shoulders.”

“So she  _ does  _ trust you.”

“More than she knows.”

Markus laughed, kicking his feet up on the low coffee table. “Always works that way, doesn’t it?” 

Thog met his gaze, a wry smile on his face. “She once told me she  _ might  _ trust me, and that’s the best I’ve gotten out of her.” Thog snorted. “She’s also spilled most of her backstory to me about her parents and the frankly  _ horrific  _ shit that happens on Meathe. That might just be because she beat the shit out of me a few years ago and could probably do it again if I told anyone else.”

Markus sat up straighter, eyes widening. “ _ She’s  _ the guardian of Meathe?”

“One of them. Probably the main one.”

“She can do the,” Markus hesitated, gesturing vaguely. “Hand thing?”

“She can do it  _ too well _ .”

“I want to see  _ that _ .”

“You really don’t.”

Markus grinned at Thog. “Oh, no, I  _ absolutely  _ do.”

Thog raised his eyebrows, largely unamused. “She’s fucking 17. Don’t say shit like that.”

“You  _ wound  _ me, Thog,” Markus said, faking offense in his voice. “She’s  _ way  _ too young for me, and moody kids aren’t anything  _ close  _ to my type. And, despite what you’ve said, you seem to be okay with her being your adopted teenage daughter , and  _ that  _ would just be weird .”

“Teenagers are a lot of fucking work,” Thog said, and Markus got the impression from the distant look on his face that this wasn’t even close to the first time he’d had that thought. 

“Well, Thog,” Markus began, hoping to drag him out of his admittedly hilarious pensive state, “you’ve called upon me for my lineage. You want me to just… hide her? Like, the thing I do every day? Just that?”

“Yeah, basically,” Thog said. “She’s a good kid, I promise. You sure you don’t want a drink?”

Markus nodded. “I’m good for tonight, but thanks.”

Thog nodded in return. “I don’t know how much you want me to pay you, but I’ll do it. I hate to say it, but she’s actually pretty damn important to me.”

Markus waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. This is a favor. I’m not taking your money for that.”

“You sure?” Thog asked. “Normally I’m not one to  _ offer  _ money, you fucking know that, but this is a pretty big deal.”

Markus shrugged. “She’ll make my life more interesting,” he replied. Glancing at Thog, he extended a hand. “It can’t hurt to have a little,” he said. Thog, almost  _ grinning  _ at him, passed the flask to him. Markus took a drink. “It takes a whole bottle of this stuff to have any effect anyway,” Markus said, only half-lying.

Markus stood up and moved to a couch, and, to his surprise, Thog also stood up. Most startling of all, however, was that Thog sat down on the same couch as him, a sign Markus took as him abandoning  _ all  _ business for the night. They were quiet for a few minutes, passing the flask back and forth, during which Markus discovered with  _ no  _ shortage of delight that it was the flask he’d enchanted for him  _ years _ ago. It still had his initials on it and  _ everything.  _ “You still use this one?” he asked, not even trying to hide the puppy-dog excitement in his voice.

“Of course I do,” Thog replied. “It’s the only one I have that never has to be refilled.” A smile crossed his face. “Saves time.”

Markus grinned. “Did I ever tell you how I made that?”

“Nope.”

“A friend taught me how,” Markus replied. “She’s quite the scholar in Freearch now, I’ve heard. It just transmutes the air inside into anything you want, theoretically, as long as you can get some of it inside.” He shrugged. “Alcohol was the easiest.”

“I could change it?” Thog asked, peering inside it.

“Sure,” Markus said. “You have to pour enough in to act as a sample, but the magic will do the rest of the work.”

“Huh.” He took another drink. A hint of pink dusted his cheeks, and Markus couldn’t help but stare at it. A pleasant warmth came over him, and for a moment, they were back in Hell together, sitting in Markus’s room after a long day of wandering the capital city. They’d tumbled onto a couch not entirely unlike the one they sat on now in the shitty hotel with red-tinted “mood lighting” —Markus still laughed when he thought about it—with arms slung around each other, exhausted and a little drunk. What started as friendly banter grew a little more serious, reminiscent of when they met and how  _ shitty  _ everything in Freearch was.

And then, in spite of the haze of alcohol, Markus remembered the next minutes with perfect clarity. He remembered Thog’s smile, the most genuine he’d ever seen, bathed in lighting that almost hid his flushed cheeks. He remembered the way his hair fell in his face, tousled from a scuffle with a couple of other tieflings who wanted to pick a fight with the one human in the bar. A bruise blossomed on one cheek and a splatter of blood stained his shirt, and he was utterly  _ perfect  _ in that moment.

Markus remembered leaning forward, he remembered the moment of kissing Thog—and, thankfully, he remembered the moment Thog kissed back. It wasn’t the best kiss he’d ever had—he kissed a lot of people while he was in Hell, and many of them had fangs—but it was the most meaningful kiss he’d ever shared, without question. He remembered shivering as they parted, accompanied by Thog’s faint chuckling, and before he could recover they were kissing again, and again, and again-

And, like lightning through his veins, Markus snapped back to the present with a start. His face burned, not just from the alcohol, and Thog, next to him, grinned in a way that was far too familiar. “What’s up?” he asked, and Markus could’ve sworn that all of their flirting was supposed to go the other way,  _ he  _ was supposed to be the one leading this, but his throat betrayed him and went dry.

“Uh,” he said, his eyes drawn from Thog’s face to his shirt—he could take that off in seconds—and back to his face. He took a drink reflexively, but it didn’t help much. “Just…” he trailed off, “remembering. You know, all of those memories from when we were younger and in Freearch and then when we were in Hell and, you know, maybe just a little of the time we went to the bar and you got in a fight and you looked  _ perfect  _ and then we made out and-” Markus cut off, out of breath. He felt his face grow warmer as his words caught up to him. “I should… probably go to bed early tonight, though,” he added, having to  _ try  _ to speak slower.

“It’s still early,” Thog began, giving him a  _ look _ that left Markus’s stomach doing somersaults. “Not even 11. Night’s young.”

Markus found a shred of his composure in Thog’s more blatant flirting, and he thanked more demons  _ and _ gods in the same thought than he had any business thanking, just because whoever found the shattered remains of his dignity really had his back this time. “You haven’t shown me around the place in a few years,” he commented. “Would you do me the honor of giving a private tour? I’m most interested in your bedroom.”

Dignity might be a debatable term, but gods help those around him, he could not and would not be stopped.

Thog snorted. “That was fuckin’ terrible.”

Markus’s grin spread wider. “But are you into it?”

“Fuckin’ got me there, I guess.”

Markus laughed, standing up with a sudden flourish of his cape. Thog looked at him, amused. 

“Thought I was giving  _ you  _ the tour,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smile. 

Markus shrugged. “I know the way.”

As the office door shut behind them on their way out, Markus had a feeling—tired as he was, he would sleep well; it might just take a few hours to get to bed.


	3. prince gregor

It wasn’t easy to remember what Renalan looked like before it died. No matter how many times he returned, no matter how familiar the location once was—it never got easier for Gregor to remember what it looked like when there were buildings instead of only their skeletons, lush trees instead of jagged, dried stumps. The grass itself had vanished, replaced with dry, desolate sand. Renalan was never beautiful in the same way as the foreign nations he’d visited, but it once held life within it—living animals, plants, _people_. But now, months after the Fall, there wasn’t a sign of life anywhere within its borders. Leading up to the edge, the grass thinned out and browned, the soil turned to sand, and where the border itself sat? The insects deep underground refused to cross it. 

A shadow returned to Gregor’s side.

“The coast’s clear,” Zalvetta murmured, quiet enough that only Gregor would hear—not that they’d found anything any other time they’d come into Renalan. It was more of a formality at this point, as far as Gregor was concerned.

“Thank you,” he replied anyway, nowhere near as quiet. 

The two of them had once theorized that perhaps monsters still lived in Renalan—at the very least, ghosts or other supernatural creatures. Maybe zombies or other forms of the undead, those that didn’t require food or water to survive. After months of exploring, they’d ruled all of those out. Unless they suddenly found a vampire den underground, it seemed unlikely that _any_ form of life—alive or not—remained in Renalan.

Gregor didn’t really know why he kept asking Zalvetta if they could return to Renalan. Maybe he was looking for something, but he didn’t know what it’d be; if he wanted to find survivors, he’d have better luck scouring the nearby countries for refugees. In the time they’d spent investigating the Fall, they hadn’t found a _single_ survivor in or out of Renalan—but, for some reason, Gregor couldn’t leave it _alone_. 

He crouched down, picking up some of the sand and letting it run through his fingers. He was no wizard, but he’d never seen real, non-magical sand this uniform or fine—it was more like heavy dust than sand, just massive enough to fall from his fingers instead of floating off into the distance. 

Gregor looked over at Zalvetta. He was visibly tense, almost as though something might be watching him at any time. Gregor felt the same prickling on the back of his neck, but with no clear source, it too became a feature of the Renalian landscape. 

He sat down and laid back in the sand, prompting a snort from Zalvetta. “Gregor?” he asked, looking down at him.

“Let’s take a break,” Gregor said, eyes already closed. “Not for long,” he clarified. “I didn’t sleep well.”

Zalvetta sat down next to him and worked his robes to a more comfortable position. Gregor peered up at him with one eye, a little smile on his face, but he soon opened his other eye. He stared at Zalvetta’s fully-bared face—a rarity when they weren’t set up for the night’s camp—finding himself transfixed by a little lock of golden-blond hair. It curled, stopping around the top of his eyebrow. Gregor took in the sight—it was just about the only thing he’d seen that day that was any better than sand and twisted metal, and the view made him smile. 

“What?” Zalvetta asked, looking down at him. “You’re looking at me.”

Gregor smiled. “It’s nice seeing something other than sand.” 

Zalvetta gave him a weird look in return, but it masked a smile of his own. “Glad to know I’m better than _sand_ ,” he said. “How you flatter me, my lord.”

Gregor’s smile turned into a true grin, even as his brow furrowed a little, and he waved a hand at Zalvetta. “Don’t call me that,” he laughed. 

“Why?” Zalvetta grinned back at him now. “You _are_ my prince.”

“Come on,” Gregor replied, drawing it out as they swatted at each other. “I’m not much of a prince anymore, really.”

A moment passed between them. They stopped swatting and it became somber, hands clasped. “You’re still a prince,” Zalvetta began, “as long as you want to be.”

“I guess,” Gregor replied, suddenly quiet. He hadn’t really given it much thought—did he even want to be a prince anymore? He didn’t like it much when he had to be one, but to just say he _wasn’t_ felt like giving up something he wasn’t ready to let go of. He sat up and dusted himself off. “Break’s over,” he said with a sudden burst of energy, standing up. He stretched, listening to Zalvetta half-complain about the sand in his boots before offering him a hand.

“Alright, alright,” Zalvetta said. “Let’s go.”

They didn’t really know _where_ they were going, and they both knew that. Gregor thought that maybe they’d find something in the ruins of Castle Renalan, or perhaps something in the Outriders’ lair—if it hadn’t caved in. They’d elected to head in that direction, but with only occasional dilapidated buildings left standing, it was difficult to even follow a map. 

Zalvetta vanished from Gregor’s side to explore the upcoming buildings. The most dangerous thing he’d ever found on his scouting expeditions was a single rusted knife, but he always went anyway, even if Gregor didn’t really get it. Gregor almost danced atop the sand, focusing most of his energy on his feet and how they touched the ground. The second he stopped, his feet would sink deep into the shifting sand, and that was more _inconvenient_ than anything else. 

As Gregor focused on his feet, he walked after Zalvetta, absentminded. Once or twice, he checked his map, knowing that these buildings were _probably_ the remains of a small town about half a day’s walk from the capital, as long as they hadn’t gotten turned around. He looked down at the ground, observing the part of the sand that bugged him the most—they didn’t leave footprints anywhere they walked. They left no imprints when they sat, and they couldn’t even provoke an _intentional_ disturbance by kicking at the sand. The sand moved when pushed, but as soon as it _wasn’t_ being pushed, it flowed back into place, indistinguishable from the sand that hadn’t been stepped on. Gregor took an exaggerated step, kicking sand up into the air—and, almost as though it were attracted by magnets or some weird magic junk he didn’t understand, every grain flowed back into place, the surface appearing as pristine and undisturbed as it had before.

Zalvetta was back by his side, having returned from scouting out the buildings.

“I found someone,” he murmured, tugging on Gregor’s sleeve to get lower to the ground. 

Gregor looked at Zalvetta, eyes wide. “Are they _alive_?” he asked. 

Zalvetta hesitated. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “She’s _breathing_ , but entirely unresponsive. She could be some type of undead, but she looks…” he trailed off, thinking. “She looks untouched.”

“What do you mean?” Gregor asked, brow furrowed and head tilted to one side. 

“I’ll show you,” Zalvetta said. “It’ll be easier.”

As they entered what remained of the town, Zalvetta took Gregor to a building that was mostly intact other than its missing roof. He checked inside again before bringing Gregor inside. 

A young woman sat in the corner, appearing to be asleep. Her clothes were vibrant colors, her neat hair a fair blonde—not unlike Zalvetta’s. The only sign of life Gregor could pick up on was the gentle rise and fall of her chest. 

“She’s alive,” Gregor said, kneeling to the ground.

“She won’t wake up.” Zalvetta knelt down next to him. 

Gregor lightly shook her, raising her arm and dropping it back against her leg, where it fell, entirely limp. He slapped lightly at her face. Zalvetta gave a quiet laugh, and when Gregor glanced back at him, he could see he was pointedly looking away, stifling further laughter.

“What’s wrong?” Gregor asked, looking away from the woman and towards Zalvetta.

“I think that’s a little fucked up,” Zalvetta replied, still visibly suppressing laughter.

“I’m just trying to wake her up,” Gregor protested, brow furrowed. “It wouldn’t be nice to hit her hard.”

“I know.” 

Gregor’s brow furrowed further. 

“What do we _do_ with her?” he finally asked. “I won’t just leave her here.”

Zalvetta half-sighed. “She’ll be dead weight,” he warned, but there was a clear note of resignation in his voice. 

“That’s fine,” Gregor said. “I’ll take her.”

Gregor went about picking her up, where her head rested against his shoulder. “She’s lighter than she looks,” he commented. “Like holding air.”

“You know,” Zalvetta began, “she could, like, curse you or something.”

“Now, Zalvetta,” Gregor began, trying his best to put a hand on his hip before realizing he couldn’t while holding a person, “ _everyone_ knows curses aren’t real.”

A beat passed between them before Zalvetta started laughing. Gregor looked at him, head tilted. “What?” he asked. “They _aren’t_.”

“You’ve never been cursed before, have you?” Zalvetta asked.

“No.”

“They’re real, I promise.”

“There’s no _way_ curses are real.”

Zalvetta nodded. “Yes.”

Gregor furrowed his brow. “It’s mean to lie to people, Zalvetta.”

Zalvetta, still grinning, shook his head and gestured towards the door. Gregor, still puzzled, left the house with the woman in his arms. They made their way through the rest of the town, but there was nothing of particular note—this town was more intact than any previous town they’d seen, but the most interesting thing they found was an open book that Zalvetta deemed entirely unremarkable. Gregor still picked it up and added it to his bag. Their progress was slower because of the extra weight, but true to Gregor’s initial observation, she was light enough that he didn’t even have to take breaks to put her down. 

As they left town, Gregor looked off in the distance. “Should we be able to see the castle by now?”

“If it’s still standing, maybe,” Zalvetta replied. “We should know within a couple hours if it’s still there.”

After about an hour of walking in more or less silence, Zalvetta spoke up. “What will we do if we get there and there’s nothing left?”

Gregor took a minute to respond, considering his words. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “Maybe just leave.”

“That’s not like you,” Zalvetta commented. 

“We have her,” Gregor nodded his head towards the woman, “and we haven’t even found any other…” he trailed off. “Any other _signs_ of survivors.”

Zalvetta hummed in response.

“And I don’t really know where we should go, but,” Gregor looked around, “I don’t like the sand here. It feels like it’s trying to _take_ something.”

“I don’t trust how it moves,” Zalvetta agreed, “but it hasn’t done anything to us yet. That doesn’t mean it’s safe, though.”

Gregor nodded. “It feels like it’s alive, but not exactly.”

“Like her.”

Gregor looked down at the woman, then to Zalvetta. “I think she’s more alive than the sand.”

“Maybe so.”

They continued on their walk until, silhouetted in the dying light of the setting sun, the outline of a massive castle came into view. However, this was not the castle of Renalan they left in a rush several months ago—this castle was flawless, made entirely of white marble. It seemed to _glow_ with an illusory haze, blurring and warping at the edges. At the top of its tower shone a single light, deep indigo in color. Most interestingly, however, storm clouds flashed above it—the first sign of _weather_ they’d seen on their entire journe—and, when lightning struck the tower, the entire castle lit up a blinding red before fading back to the indistinct, shifting white marble. 

Zalvetta whistled beneath his breath. “I think we don’t want to go there,” he said.

Gregor’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure?”

“If we want to die, sure, we can go.” Zalvetta shrugged. “And, seeing as it’s my job to make sure you _don’t_ die, I’m going to suggest that we don’t.”

Gregor looked at Zalvetta, half-scowling. “But we can't just leave that alone. It’s the only thing of note we’ve found here other than her.” 

“And how will we fight with her around?” Zalvetta asked. 

Gregor was quiet for a moment. “I can probably do it.”

“With a glaive,” Zalvetta deadpanned. 

Gregor didn’t respond.

“Listen, Gregor,” Zalvetta began, “I’m not saying we can’t go after it later. I’m saying we shouldn’t do it right _now_ , not with just us two and Sleeping Beauty over there.”

“What if it isn’t here next time we come back?” Gregor asked, shifting uneasily. It felt deeply, viscerally wrong to not check it out. His body almost itched to explore it.

“If it’s not there, it was dangerous the whole time.”

Gregor looked at Zalvetta, searching for a response. “Fine,” he finally said, “but only because we have her, and we have to keep her safe.”

“If it means that much to you, we’ll come back later.”

“Okay,” Gregor agreed. “I think we need to leave, then. Let’s get her out of here.”

Zalvetta nodded, a faint smile on his face. “Lead the way, my prince.”

**Author's Note:**

> hmu @tsukarine on tumblr or twitter  
> thank you for reading :)


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